Telling it like it isn't
Mark Steyn - Monday,17 October 2005
Western Standard
I can't pretend to be an expert in the social hierarchy of the United Nations. So for all I know being scheduled on the final day of the "High-level Plenary Meeting" between the prime ministers of Liechtenstein and St. Vincent and the prime ministers of Armenia and Tuvalu is the to-die-for A-list slot on the bill. If so, congratulations to Paul Martin.
Alas, the world's press appears to have afforded scant coverage of our guy. Possibly His Excellency Mr. Otmar Hasler, Liechtenstein's "Minister for General Government Affairs, Finance, Public Construction, Family Affairs and Equality Between Men and Women" was so riveting that the assembled media stampeded off to bark down their telephones, "Hold the front page! Or, if we use his full title in the headline, hold pages two and three, too." Or possibly the prime minister of Armenia, His Excellency Mr. Andranik Margaryan, is a renowned windbag and this was the last chance the press corps had for a bathroom break. But, for whatever reason, Canada's contribution to the summit went comprehensively unnoticed. Fortunately, the Toronto Star's man was on hand to give the prime minister's speech the full maple-boosterist treatment: "Martin Tells It Like It Is At U.N."
"Make no mistake. The U.N. needs reform," our fearless leader declared, saving his boldest criticism for the Security Council. "Too often we have debated the finer points of language while innocent people continue to die," he said. "Darfur is only the latest example."
Does Canada have a policy on Darfur? If so, I can't remember ever hearing of it. I know that the reviled warmongers Bush and Blair were in favour of action to stop the genocide, and that those renowned forces for good in the world, France, Russia and China, were in favour of blocking any action until everybody was dead. But, if Mr. Martin had previously had any contribution to make, it's news to me. Was Canada involved in the eventual NATO-EU airlift of African Union peacekeepers to Darfur set up to bypass the UN stalemate? We're a formal member of NATO and a philosophical soulmate of the EU, so I'd hope we were. By "involved," I mean providing practical assistance, not just raising our hand and voting for America, Britain, Spain, Turkey and Luxembourg to do the heavy lifting. Oh, by the way, it's slipped my mind: was it a Canadian who brokered the peace deal in southern Sudan? Maurice Strong maybe? Stephen Lewis?
That's the difference. If you object to UN paralysis, find a way round it: that's, in essence, what Bush and Blair did on both Iraq and Sudan. But to cede to the UN the sole moral authority in global affairs and then complain when it doesn't do anything you claim to want is pathetic. At the General Assembly gabfest, Mr. Martin dusted off his proposal for a "G20": apparently, if the Security Council is an ineffective talking-shop, the answer is to create a bigger talking-shop. That way, Canada will have a place at the table and be able to demand that we act--or, at any rate, that the other fellows sitting round the table act. Oh, sure, we'll chip in a couple-dozen Princess Pats as a token contribution, if the Americans or some other country with C130s can give'em a ride.
Creating a whole new lumbering transnational bureaucracy in order to give an invisible third-rank power another photo-op seems a poor trade-off. One reason I'm a big fan of Australia's John Howard is his admirable lack of interest in the poseur diplomacy of international summits. By contrast, when "Martin Tells It Like It Is," why should anyone listen? He's demanding a multilateralism that's less than the sum of its parts. The same few countries would do all the work--in Sudan, Iraq and pretty much everywhere else--but he'd get to approve it.
In fairness to the Toronto Star, their report on Mr. Martin's call for action was sub-headlined "But PM's Critics Say Record At Odds With Blunt Speech." Exactly my point, I thought, somewhat heartened. As it turned out, the only "critics" cited in the story were ones to the left of the prime minister and thus even more mired in the stagnant bromides of progressivism. Representatives of World Vision, Make Poverty History and Friends of the Earth International professed themselves disappointed that Mr. Martin hadn't set firm "targets" for this and that--the elimination of poverty, global warming, you name it. "Millions of children, mothers and fathers had reason for hope this week," complained Dave Toycen, president of World Vision, "and that was dashed. We just did not step up to the plate." "The world was looking to Canada for action," said Gerry Barr, co-chair of Make Poverty History, "and Canada was silent."
If only.
Are these folks bananas? The number of people looking to Canada for action can be counted on one hand, and, while millions of children may have dashed hopes, I doubt a Paul Martin speech is any cause thereof. Toycen told the Star that there has "never been a greater well of goodwill toward increasing development aid in Canada," but it seems to me, au contraire, that voters are largely content with Martinite humbug: a government that brags about its commitment to all the approved global causes without expending time, money or resources on them seems to suit the Canadian people just fine. Postmodern post-nationalism, as it were.
But what a country: apparently the only two viable positions in the national debate are the sincerely deluded left and the cynically posturing left. That's one reason why Washington, London and even the saner European chancelleries have no desire to add a G20 confab with Ottawa to the already summit-choked calendar.
Take climate change. "Climate change is real, and the world must recognize it," droned the prime minister. "Human activity is a defining cause, and the world must act on it."
Big deal. What does he propose to do about it? Well, there's going to be some hotshot international meeting on it in Montreal in November, and Mr. Martin may well stand up and say: "Climate change is real, and the world must act on it. Human activity is a defining cause, and the world must recognize it." Or vice versa. Even if your crystal ball's all fogged up with CO2 emissions, it doesn't take much to predict that whatever this big summit in Montreal's all about it will be entirely irrelevant to any developments on "climate change" for good or ill.
Meanwhile, as Mr. Martin was phoning it in, Tony Blair was on stage with Bill Clinton and Condi Rice shredding the Kyoto treaty: the British prime minister said that, apropos global warming, he was going to talk with "brutal honesty"--or "tell it like it is," as the Toronto Star would say--and, unlike his Canadian counterpart, he did. "My thinking has changed in the past three or four years," he said. "No country is going to cut its growth."
Correct. No government is going to cut the legs off its economy in order to comply with some kooky eco-treaty. As for the pacesetters in the global growth leagues--China and India--they're not signatories and, in Blair's words, "they're not going to start negotiating another treaty like Kyoto."
Also true. The present treaty will expire in 2012 and nothing will replace it. To be sure, Mr. Blair, like Mr. Martin and those Canuck NGO wallahs, thinks there is such a thing as "climate change." But, as he sees it, "There is no way that we are going to tackle this problem unless we develop the science and technology to do it."
Bullseye! Technological innovation solves the problem; expensive government-mandated public discomfort will only manage it ineffectually in perpetuity. Mr. Blair's longtime deputy, John Prescott, was one of the most fanatical Kyoto-fetishists and one of the most furious at the Bush administration's dismissive
sayonara to the whole rigmarole. The British government has taken the best part of a decade to come round to what I like to think of as the Steyn position, but better late (as Mr. Blair is) than never (which would seem to be Mr. Martin's position).
Tony Blair is an infuriating figure to conservatives but the difference between his enthusiastic public hammering of Kyoto's coffin nails and Mr. Martin's dreary autopilot platitudes is as swift an illustration of why the former's a consequential figure and the latter's environmental policy consists mainly of a commitment to recycling last decade's conventional wisdom.
But surely, you say, if "the world is looking to Canada," we must have some influence in the "climate change" debate. Why, certainly. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Michel Chossudovsky, professor of economics at the University of Ottawa, has been eagerly taken up by the world's wackiest Internet conspiracy sites because of his belief that "Washington's New World Order weapons have the ability to trigger climate change." That's right: the Pentagon has a weapons system that can launch "floods, droughts, hurricanes and earthquakes."
What did I say the viable positions on Canada's political spectrum boiled down to? The sincere left and the poseur left? Better add the paranoid left, too. If there's any justice, at the first G20 summit in Shawinigan one of Karl Rove's Pentagon-concocted hurricanes will sweep in and shred the final communiqué, scattering it from Hudson's Bay to Natashquan.
Mark Steyn - Monday,17 October 2005
Western Standard
I can't pretend to be an expert in the social hierarchy of the United Nations. So for all I know being scheduled on the final day of the "High-level Plenary Meeting" between the prime ministers of Liechtenstein and St. Vincent and the prime ministers of Armenia and Tuvalu is the to-die-for A-list slot on the bill. If so, congratulations to Paul Martin.
Alas, the world's press appears to have afforded scant coverage of our guy. Possibly His Excellency Mr. Otmar Hasler, Liechtenstein's "Minister for General Government Affairs, Finance, Public Construction, Family Affairs and Equality Between Men and Women" was so riveting that the assembled media stampeded off to bark down their telephones, "Hold the front page! Or, if we use his full title in the headline, hold pages two and three, too." Or possibly the prime minister of Armenia, His Excellency Mr. Andranik Margaryan, is a renowned windbag and this was the last chance the press corps had for a bathroom break. But, for whatever reason, Canada's contribution to the summit went comprehensively unnoticed. Fortunately, the Toronto Star's man was on hand to give the prime minister's speech the full maple-boosterist treatment: "Martin Tells It Like It Is At U.N."
"Make no mistake. The U.N. needs reform," our fearless leader declared, saving his boldest criticism for the Security Council. "Too often we have debated the finer points of language while innocent people continue to die," he said. "Darfur is only the latest example."
Does Canada have a policy on Darfur? If so, I can't remember ever hearing of it. I know that the reviled warmongers Bush and Blair were in favour of action to stop the genocide, and that those renowned forces for good in the world, France, Russia and China, were in favour of blocking any action until everybody was dead. But, if Mr. Martin had previously had any contribution to make, it's news to me. Was Canada involved in the eventual NATO-EU airlift of African Union peacekeepers to Darfur set up to bypass the UN stalemate? We're a formal member of NATO and a philosophical soulmate of the EU, so I'd hope we were. By "involved," I mean providing practical assistance, not just raising our hand and voting for America, Britain, Spain, Turkey and Luxembourg to do the heavy lifting. Oh, by the way, it's slipped my mind: was it a Canadian who brokered the peace deal in southern Sudan? Maurice Strong maybe? Stephen Lewis?
That's the difference. If you object to UN paralysis, find a way round it: that's, in essence, what Bush and Blair did on both Iraq and Sudan. But to cede to the UN the sole moral authority in global affairs and then complain when it doesn't do anything you claim to want is pathetic. At the General Assembly gabfest, Mr. Martin dusted off his proposal for a "G20": apparently, if the Security Council is an ineffective talking-shop, the answer is to create a bigger talking-shop. That way, Canada will have a place at the table and be able to demand that we act--or, at any rate, that the other fellows sitting round the table act. Oh, sure, we'll chip in a couple-dozen Princess Pats as a token contribution, if the Americans or some other country with C130s can give'em a ride.
Creating a whole new lumbering transnational bureaucracy in order to give an invisible third-rank power another photo-op seems a poor trade-off. One reason I'm a big fan of Australia's John Howard is his admirable lack of interest in the poseur diplomacy of international summits. By contrast, when "Martin Tells It Like It Is," why should anyone listen? He's demanding a multilateralism that's less than the sum of its parts. The same few countries would do all the work--in Sudan, Iraq and pretty much everywhere else--but he'd get to approve it.
In fairness to the Toronto Star, their report on Mr. Martin's call for action was sub-headlined "But PM's Critics Say Record At Odds With Blunt Speech." Exactly my point, I thought, somewhat heartened. As it turned out, the only "critics" cited in the story were ones to the left of the prime minister and thus even more mired in the stagnant bromides of progressivism. Representatives of World Vision, Make Poverty History and Friends of the Earth International professed themselves disappointed that Mr. Martin hadn't set firm "targets" for this and that--the elimination of poverty, global warming, you name it. "Millions of children, mothers and fathers had reason for hope this week," complained Dave Toycen, president of World Vision, "and that was dashed. We just did not step up to the plate." "The world was looking to Canada for action," said Gerry Barr, co-chair of Make Poverty History, "and Canada was silent."
If only.
Are these folks bananas? The number of people looking to Canada for action can be counted on one hand, and, while millions of children may have dashed hopes, I doubt a Paul Martin speech is any cause thereof. Toycen told the Star that there has "never been a greater well of goodwill toward increasing development aid in Canada," but it seems to me, au contraire, that voters are largely content with Martinite humbug: a government that brags about its commitment to all the approved global causes without expending time, money or resources on them seems to suit the Canadian people just fine. Postmodern post-nationalism, as it were.
But what a country: apparently the only two viable positions in the national debate are the sincerely deluded left and the cynically posturing left. That's one reason why Washington, London and even the saner European chancelleries have no desire to add a G20 confab with Ottawa to the already summit-choked calendar.
Take climate change. "Climate change is real, and the world must recognize it," droned the prime minister. "Human activity is a defining cause, and the world must act on it."
Big deal. What does he propose to do about it? Well, there's going to be some hotshot international meeting on it in Montreal in November, and Mr. Martin may well stand up and say: "Climate change is real, and the world must act on it. Human activity is a defining cause, and the world must recognize it." Or vice versa. Even if your crystal ball's all fogged up with CO2 emissions, it doesn't take much to predict that whatever this big summit in Montreal's all about it will be entirely irrelevant to any developments on "climate change" for good or ill.
Meanwhile, as Mr. Martin was phoning it in, Tony Blair was on stage with Bill Clinton and Condi Rice shredding the Kyoto treaty: the British prime minister said that, apropos global warming, he was going to talk with "brutal honesty"--or "tell it like it is," as the Toronto Star would say--and, unlike his Canadian counterpart, he did. "My thinking has changed in the past three or four years," he said. "No country is going to cut its growth."
Correct. No government is going to cut the legs off its economy in order to comply with some kooky eco-treaty. As for the pacesetters in the global growth leagues--China and India--they're not signatories and, in Blair's words, "they're not going to start negotiating another treaty like Kyoto."
Also true. The present treaty will expire in 2012 and nothing will replace it. To be sure, Mr. Blair, like Mr. Martin and those Canuck NGO wallahs, thinks there is such a thing as "climate change." But, as he sees it, "There is no way that we are going to tackle this problem unless we develop the science and technology to do it."
Bullseye! Technological innovation solves the problem; expensive government-mandated public discomfort will only manage it ineffectually in perpetuity. Mr. Blair's longtime deputy, John Prescott, was one of the most fanatical Kyoto-fetishists and one of the most furious at the Bush administration's dismissive
sayonara to the whole rigmarole. The British government has taken the best part of a decade to come round to what I like to think of as the Steyn position, but better late (as Mr. Blair is) than never (which would seem to be Mr. Martin's position).
Tony Blair is an infuriating figure to conservatives but the difference between his enthusiastic public hammering of Kyoto's coffin nails and Mr. Martin's dreary autopilot platitudes is as swift an illustration of why the former's a consequential figure and the latter's environmental policy consists mainly of a commitment to recycling last decade's conventional wisdom.
But surely, you say, if "the world is looking to Canada," we must have some influence in the "climate change" debate. Why, certainly. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Michel Chossudovsky, professor of economics at the University of Ottawa, has been eagerly taken up by the world's wackiest Internet conspiracy sites because of his belief that "Washington's New World Order weapons have the ability to trigger climate change." That's right: the Pentagon has a weapons system that can launch "floods, droughts, hurricanes and earthquakes."
What did I say the viable positions on Canada's political spectrum boiled down to? The sincere left and the poseur left? Better add the paranoid left, too. If there's any justice, at the first G20 summit in Shawinigan one of Karl Rove's Pentagon-concocted hurricanes will sweep in and shred the final communiqué, scattering it from Hudson's Bay to Natashquan.
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